When I was twenty the one true
free spirit I had heard of was Shelley,
Shelley, who wrote tracts advocating
atheism, free love, the emancipation
of women, the abolition of wealth and class,
and poems on the bliss of romantic love,
Shelley, who, I learned later, perhaps
almost too late, remarried Harriet,
then pregnant with their second child,
and a few months later ran off with Mary,
already pregnant herself, bringing
with them Mary’s stepsister Claire,
who very likely also became his lover…

In Great Britain this week, secularists attacked Catholic schools for reading a letter from the bishops opposing same-sex marriage.

In Ontario, the government insists it can tell Catholic schools what they must teach about sexual orientation.

Could it happen here? In the name of “common core standards,” Pres. Obama has laid down a template for federal control over school curriculum. By setting the standards all students must learn, the federal government can dictate the content of what public schools, charter schools and even possibly private schools.

Sarah Palin was the first to recognize the problem: By participating in President Obama’s signature education initiative, the Common Core Standards, Alaska would lose control over its own curriculum. On May 31, 2009, then-Gov. Palin announced Alaska would adopt a “watch and wait” attitude:

“If this initiative produces useful results, Alaska will remain free to incorporate them,” Gov. Palin said, adding that “high expectations are not always created by new, mandated federal standards written on paper. They are created in the home, the community and the classroom.”

If you read between the lines of the April 17 poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, you can see it’s President Obama, not Gov. Romney, who has reasons to fear a growing gender gap. (This may be why Obama disavowed the meme and slapped back Hilary Rosen’s mean-girl words to Ann Romney.)

The Pew poll shows Obama with a narrowing lead, 49 percent to 44 percent, down from a 12-point lead last month.

Despite Democrats assiduously working the “war on women” for two months, Obama’s lead among women overall is no different now than it was four years ago: 13 percent. Among white women, his lead has shrunk from 56 percent in 2008 exit polls to 53 percent today.

“There is a greater gap between white men and white women today, not because white women have moved toward Obama, but because white men have moved away from him,” says the Pew report. John McCain’s 16-point edge among white men in 2008 has widened to a 26-point lead for Romney today — 60 percent to 34 percent.

“There is no tougher job than being a mom,” President Obama told a Cedar Rapids television station, mentioning his own wife and mother. He added, “I don’t have a lot of patience for commentary about the spouses of political candidates. My general view is those of us who are in the public life, we’re fair game. Our families are civilians.”

Good on him.

Hilary is the former partner of the former head of the Human Rights Campaign, Elizabeth Birch. It’s probably not relevant, but almost nobody is reporting it so I mention it.

More importantly, Hilary’s defense of her attack on Ann Romney is profoundly wrong, in a hundred different ways.

Maggie Gallagher, president of the Culture War Victory Fund, endorsed Santorum early on but today called for the GOP to unify behind Romney.

‘For social conservatives, especially Christian conservatives, the race between President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney is not a close call,” she said in a statement. “A pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-religious liberty president is priority number one. It’s clear it’s going to be a tough fight and a close election, and we need every man and woman on board to win.’

Mitt Romney is our nominee and I endorse him, personally. More on that later.

Rick Santorum came from nowhere with grit, determination, and hard work, to speak for million of Americans for whom the American dream includes economic opportunity. But it also includes basic human values: respect for life, for marriage, and for religious liberty. Rick spoke from and for the blue collar wing of party, for an America that works for everyone. Money and organization matter, but they are not everything.

“What kept us going was your stories,” Rick said at Gettyburg.

No Republican underdog in living memory won ten states against the presumptive front-runner and nominee. Tme will tell, but let me say what I think: it wasn’t an accident. We haven’t seen the last of Rick Santorum.